


Person of Leverage

by galaxysoup



Category: Leverage, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Epilogue, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysoup/pseuds/galaxysoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victim or perpetrator, if your number’s up we’ll find you. We provide... leverage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Person of Leverage

**Author's Note:**

> Because _of course_.

Hardison’s phone rings just as he’s sitting down at his computer. It’s an unknown number and for a moment he nearly ignores it, but he’s always had a natural curiosity and it could be a client or an old contact. Given the number of scumbags in the world they’re hardly hurting for business, but now that Nate and Sophie have retired and it’s just him and Parker and Eliot running things there’s an added edge of uncertainty to everything they do. They’re still a kickass team, don’t get him wrong, but still. It’s kind of like moving out for the first time and realising what paying your own rent actually _means_.

Okay, granted, in Hardison’s world rent is something that mostly happens to other people, but the analogy still stands.

Given the laundry list of identities his chosen lifestyle has handed him, he goes for a noncommittal “Yes?” when he answers the phone. Short, sweet, unrevealing, and he can turn it into just about any accent once he figures out who’s on the other side.

“Mr. Hardison, good morning,” a man’s voice says on the other end of the phone. “I apologize for contacting you without a proper introduction, but I believe I have a business proposal that you and your associates will find quite rewarding.”

Hardison frowns. The man’s voice is dry and precise, the kind of voice that belongs to a paper-pusher or an accountant, somebody with a boring job that revolves entirely around details. He immediately imagines someone with a shirt that’s always buttoned and neatly tucked in and glasses that never get smudgy. “And you are?”

“You may call me Mr. Finch,” the man says, with just the barest pause to indicate he’s made the name up on the spot. “Like you and your associates, I am in the business of protecting people. My operations are based on the East Coast, but it has recently come to my attention that there is a need for the services I provide in your area as well. I realise that it would be foolish of you to trust my word, so I have sent you the details of some of our activities - a resume, as it were. Please check your e-mail.”

Right on cue, Hardison’s e-mail dings. Not one of his dummy e-mails, not the one tied to his WoW account or to online shopping, but the private one he mostly uses for annoying Eliot and sending lolcats to Parker. He runs a quick check on the message and its attachments and then opens it.

“I do not wish to either curtail or infringe on your usual activities, Mr. Hardison,” Mr. Finch continues. “My area of expertise lies in determining when premeditated crimes will occur and intervening in time to protect the innocent parties. It is certainly different from your usual Robin Hood modus operandi but not, I think, inimical, and your team already possesses the necessary skills and, shall we say, moral certainty to be quite effective.”

Hardison dedicates part of his attention to monitoring what Mr. Finch is saying and uses the rest to initiate a backtrace on the e-mail and glance through the information Finch has sent. Finch and whoever he might work with took down Virtanen Pharmaceuticals, huh? Interesting. Hardison’s had Virtanen on a watch list for a while because of their hinky data practices, but since nobody’s made a formal complaint or come to them for help he’d never paid them much attention.

“What I propose is a data exchange,” Finch continues. “I have no interest in overseeing your operations, and how you choose to act on the information I give you is up to you.”

The backtrace stalls out in Azerbaijan, neatly derailed by a bit of coding that makes Hardison’s mouth water. Whoever this guy is, he’s a hell of a programmer.

“You will be given the social security number of a person who is shortly to be involved in a dangerous crime. It may be the victim, it may be the perpetrator - all I can promise is that the threat will be real and action will be required.”

Hardison scrolls through a few more of the cases the man sent him. Holy crap, he was behind that dirty cop takedown? And the SP-9 money laundering thing? And oh sweet Jesus, blacking out half of the cell phones in Manhattan? That would have meant hacking into the DHS’s emergency system. Hardison scrolls further - there are examples of some of Finch’s coding and specs for some of his equipment and Hardison goes a little lightheaded.

“I understand and encourage you to talk this over with your associates before you come to a decision - “

That plus whatever he would have had to do to find Hardison _and_ access his private e-mail account... Hardison wants to talk to this guy for like _ever_. He wants to pick his brain and compare notes and offer himself up as a freaking _Padawan_ , may the original trilogy forgive him. “Oh my God, will you marry me?” he blurts, and then claps his hands over his mouth in horror.

“Sadly, I must decline, although I assure you I’m very flattered,” Finch says after a moment of frozen silence.

“Okay,” Hardison says in a strangled voice. “Um, yeah, I’ll talk it over with my friends. It does sound really interesting and very much up our alley and everything and um, even if it doesn’t pan out, kudos to you, man, you’re doing a really great job.”

“Thank you,” Finch says gravely. “May I also extend congratulations to you for your work on Damien Moreau? I found it quite inspirational. I assume, however, that Ms. Devereaux was not actually injured?”

“Oh, no, she’s fine,” Hardison says. “Hey, I’ll call my guys and get back to you, okay?”

“Excellent. Have a good day, Mr. Hardison,” Finch says, and the line goes dead.

Hardison gives himself a moment in which to hyperventilate and feel great shame, and then he gets over it and starts thinking. A guy with this kind of mojo doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Obviously he’s good at what he does and any digital presence he has is probably both deliberate and carefully crafted, but even so - Hardison has never even _heard_ of a ‘Mr. Finch’. It’s not a handle. This guy doesn’t want to be known, which for someone of his skill level is unusual.

That brings up another question: Finch claims to have the ability to see when premeditated crimes are being planned. Given his resume and the brief results of the trace Hardison ran, there’s no particular reason to doubt him. To acquire the kind of data that would give him those results, though, would be a massive undertaking and would certainly require surveillance on a level that Hardison can only -

Oh. Oh, holy shit. After 9/11 the government had tried to build machines that would track that kind of data and come to some of those conclusions, and had failed miserably. But there have always been rumors, _what if_ s posted to conspiracy messageboards, a sort of digital urban legend. What if the government succeeded? What if we’re being watched?

A machine that could find terrorists... well, terrorists plan like normal people plan. Someone would have had to teach the machine to tell the difference. But what would happen to all that other data? Where would it go?

How could anyone sit by and ignore it?

Hardison’s e-mail pings again. _I should warn you, Mr. Hardison,_ the message says, _that despite your natural curiosity and the fact that you would undoubtedly like to know more about me and the source of my information, I am a very private person. I would appreciate your discretion in this matter._

_I really understand that, believe me,_ Hardison writes back after a moment’s thought, and then picks up his phone.

“Hey, guys? I think I’ve got something for us. How fast can you make it to the brewpub?”


End file.
